Not just during Ramadan

The Greater Amman Municipality is hard at work to make Amman more livable and comfortable, and for that it deserves praise.

Ramadan is a few days away, and knowing how citizens function during that period, GAM is planning to close a few areas of Amman to vehicles, to “encourage people to let go of their cars and enjoy the city”, as one municipality official put it.

Jabal Hussein, downtown Amman, Sweifieh and Rainbow Street are some of the envisaged locations that will be off limits to cars during rush hours.

This all, GAM says, is being entertained to preserve the “spirit“ of Ramadan, expected to start on June 18.

“We want people to have a connection with the physical environment, something that cannot be realised when they are in their cars,” said the executive director of GAM’s transport and traffic department.

“We think that Ramadan will be the perfect opportunity to realise this,” he added.

There is nothing wrong with making some parts of Amman car-free, provided there is an alternate transportation system in place.

But doing it during Ramadan — except for the obvious reason that hundreds of thousands of extra cars will flood the city, making the already crowded streets a nightmare to negotiate during rush hours — does not sound like the best idea, knowing that people are usually tired, hungry, thirsty and short tempered, and that the last thing on their minds is the enjoyment of the environment or historical or cultural sites during fasting hours.

Ramadan is not exactly a season for tourism, a time during which “convertible buses” can be used by fasting people, as suggested by GAM. 

But if one might find it difficult to make the connection between all these otherwise sound measures and preserving the “spirit” of Ramadan, what is clear is that making these areas off limit to cars during rush hours is good policy that should not be confined to Ramadan.

It should be a policy valid all year round, with buses in place to provide alternate transportation.

A permanent solution to the traffic jam problem lies in a proper public transportation system. There is no going around that.

The “spirit” of Ramadan must linger throughout the year, and not be limited to one month only.